One of England's most important playwrights, Harold Pinter was born in
Hackney, near the East End of London, on October 10, 1930. The son of tailor
Hyman Jack Pinter and Frances Mann Pinter, he grew
up in a working class environment. While attending Hackney Downs Grammar
School, he became interested in acting and participated in school productions,
and he also began writing essays and poetry. In 1948 Pinter was admitted to the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but he left after two terms. From then until
1958 he worked as an actor, using the name David Baron from 1954 to 1958. He
acted in BBC radio programs, attended the Central School of Speech and Drama
(1951), toured Ireland with Anew McMaster's Shakespearean repertory company for
18 months, and then worked in various other repertory companies, including
Donald Wolfit's Shakespearean company.

During that time, Pinter continued to write poetry and short prose
pieces; his poetry was first published in

Poetry London in 1950 under the pseudonym
Harold Pinta. In 1957 Pinter was asked to write a play for the drama department
at Bristol University, and in four days he wrote
The Room, which was very well received and
was entered in the
Sunday Times student drama festival. A
favorable review of that play led Michael Codron to produce Pinter's next play,
The Birthday Party, which was not successful
and closed after a week's time. However, his second full-length play,
The Caretaker (1960), received critical
acclaim. A prolific writer, Pinter went on to write numerous radio plays,
television plays, and short plays, as well as full-length plays, for the stage.
A Slight Ache (1959), which had been
commissioned by the BBC and was later adapted for the stage, gained him the
attention of a broader public. From then on, his reputation grew until he
became known as one of the most influential and important dramatists of
post-war England, responsible for the creation of two new dramatic terms,
Pinteresque (defining his unique style) and
Pinter pause (referring to his use of meaningful
silences).
The Homecoming (1965) is widely considered
Pinter's best and most important play, but his other full-length plays, such as
Old Times (1971) and
Betrayal (1978), have also been significant.
In addition to his stage and radio plays, Pinter has written screenplays,
including
The Servant (1962),
Accident (1967),
The Go-Between (1971),
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981),
Turtle Diary (1985),
The Trial (1989), and
The Handmaid's Tale (1990), among others.
Pinter did not abandon his interest in poetry; besides publishing several
volumes of poetry, he has also edited anthologies of poetry, including
Ninety-Nine Poems in Translation (1994).

Pinter is an accomplished director and has directed productions of his
own plays and others; he served as Associate Director at the National Theatre
from 1973 until 1983.

Pinter has been married twice: first to actress Vivien Merchant
(1956-80), with whom he had one son, and second to author Lady Antonia Fraser
(1980-).

Sources

More information about Harold Pinter and his work may be found in the
following sources:

The Harold Pinter collection consists primarily of scripts of his radio
plays, stage plays, and screenplays, dating from 1960 to 1980. In addition,
there is one holograph letter from Pinter to Jacob Schwartz and one holograph
and two typed letters to Schwartz' wife, Anita Sharp Bolster.

The scripts are all mimeograph or photocopy typescripts without any
holograph notes, with the exception of

The Last Tycoon, which has annotations by an
unknown person, and
The Lover, with a few annotations probably
made by the costume designer. Material relating to the first New York
production of
The Birthday Party in 1967 includes review
clippings, a reprint of a full-page advertisement from the
New York Times, a letter from a fan to
reviewer Henry Hewes, and notes about the play by unknown persons. Scripts for
other New York productions include those for the Eastside Playhouse's
productions of
The Basement and
The Tea Party, and Cherry Lane Theatre's
production of
The Lover. With Joseph Losey and Barbara
Bray, Pinter wrote a screenplay adaptation of Proust's
A la recherche du temps perdu which was
never filmed but was published as
The Proust Screenplay in 1977; two
typescripts of that work are present.
Voices in the Air, a BBC Radio Third
Programme which included Pinter's
That's All and
Applicant, is represented by a complete
script containing short plays and music by such other authors as David Climie,
Donald Cotton, John Betjeman, Michael Flanders (
Trunk Call), Antony Hopkins, Paul McDowell,
N. F. Simpson (
Gladly Otherwise), Piers Stephens, Donald
Swann, and Sandy Wilson.
Related Materials

Other materials at the HRHRC by or relating to Harold Pinter may be
found in the David Hare, London Magazine, New Departures, Peter Owen, and Tom
Stoppard collections.